


The House at the End of the World

by MirrorMystic



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creation Myth, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: She was the last person to know the world was ending.
Kudos: 8





	The House at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite of an old fic, featuring my original cosmology. I hope you all enjoy the read. 
> 
> Follow me on Twitter at @mystic_writes

_~*~_ _  
__  
_ She was the last person to know the world was ending.   
  
She lived alone, in a one-storey cottage on a flat stretch of grassland, with a single tree in her backyard. She had no parents; no siblings; no children. She had a cat, however. A lean, orange cat with yellow eyes and a penchant for sleeping in cupboards. And she had her favorite book.   
  
_In a place behind the curtain of the world, there are roads paved with light,_ it read. _The paths of destiny, at the beginning of all things._ _  
__  
_ On the last night before the world ended, she saw a white butterfly land on her windowsill. Her cat swatted at it, and watched with bright eyes as it flitted away.   
  
That night, she sat up in bed and read her favorite book. In it, a hooded and robed figure walked the roads made of light, casting no shadow, a book chained to his wrist.   
  
_Destiny continues to walk,_ the book read. _In his hands is a book. In that book is the World._   
  
She drifted off to the familiar warmth of her cat on her stomach and the crackling of a fire in her hearth.   
  
She dreamt of a boy, the little brother she never had. His left eye was covered by his bangs. His right shone with a brilliant blue light, and if she looked closely, she could see a clock face, ticking away the minutes to midnight.   
  
He wore a red sash over his shoulder, and wooden beads around his neck. He did not touch the ground; he floated, wreathed in vivid blue fire, but above him, the peaks of the flames became white butterflies, flitting away.   
  
The boy did not speak. He simply smiled a mysterious smile, and then he was gone.   
  
~*~  
  
On the first day after the world ended, there was a knock at her door.   
  
There was a man on her doorstep, in a red robe, his fingers covered in glittering brass rings. His shadow flickered like a flame, not like a man. And there was something wrong with his eyes. They were red; all red, without any white showing. The man smiled, baring perfectly white teeth.  
  
“This world is cruel,” he said, “and the end is nigh. Come with me, and I shall give you guidance in these lost, troubling times. Come with me, and I shall give you a place to belong.”  
  
“Thank you,” she replied, “but I already have one of those.”  
  
She closed the door, locked it, and drew the blinds on her windows. In the distance, she saw them marching-- a crowd of people, all in red, led by a man in black using a spear as a walking stick.   
  
The man kept knocking at her door, kept peddling lies with his perfect teeth, but she did not let him in. She sat in her kitchen with a cup of tea, reading her favorite book, with her cat curled up on her lap.   
  
The pounding at her door became more incessant, and the voice beyond grew more inhuman, but for all his bluster, the man could not enter unless she allowed it.   
  
The first day came and went, and Dogma did not take her.   
  
~*~  
  
On the second day after the world’s ending, the sun stopped in the sky.   
  
Or perhaps it had already stopped, and she simply hadn’t seen it, veiled as it was by yesterday’s storm clouds. Despite this, she still went about her daily routine. She fed her cat. She drank her tea. She sat in a rocking chair by the fireplace, and read her favorite book.   
  
_Destiny continues to walk…_ _  
__  
_ For much of the second day, the sun beat down, relentless. She fanned herself with her book, sweat beading at her brows. Tomorrow, she decided, she would make lemonade instead of tea.   
  
At nightfall on the second day, the sun did not set to mark the day’s passing. But a shadow crept across the sky regardless, a storm making for a false sunset.   
  
Dust clouds gathered on the horizon. She scurried about the house, shutting every window, locking every door. When the sandstorm came, she sat in her rocking chair with her favorite book and her cat on her lap, and waited.   
  
The wind howled. Dust scoured her walls, nicking and scraping, sounding for all the world like daemons scratching at her doors.   
  
Through the storm, she could see him. A man, all in black, as if in mourning, his head cradled in his hands. Surely, she thought, he must have no tears left. They must have been scoured away by the sandstorm, by the sun frozen in the sky, by the sinister desert heat.   
  
The sandstorm raged throughout the night, battering her house and shredding the leaves from her tree. But she stayed inside, her book clutched to her chest, and was not afraid.   
  
The second day came and went, and Decay did not take her.   
  
~*~  
  
On the third day after the world’s ending, the sky shattered like glass.   
  
Pieces of it yet remained, hanging high above. The sun continued to blaze, frozen high above. But shards of the sky fell and crashed into the plains, scoured clean by the sandstorm. They stabbed into the earth and stuck fast, like the sun-bleached bones of a long-dead god poking out of the desert sand.   
  
Darkness crept out from the gaps in the sky. Stars winked on and off in the distance, as if they were not stars, but eyes.   
  
On the third day, a weight settled on her chest. For two days, she’d stubbornly stuck to her daily routine, but at last, the reality was catching up. The sky was broken. The world was ending.   
  
But she was still here, still alive, and she still had things to do. So, tempted as she was to merely stay in bed all day, she got up. She fed her cat. She made lemonade, just like she said she would. She sat at her kitchen table, savored a glass of cool, crisp lemonade, and she watched as the sky fell in.   
  
That night, as cracks spread across the sky and darkness came seeping through, a woman appeared in her bedroom.   
  
Shadows shifted in the corner of her eyes, pooling together to become a gown of midnight-blue. She held a mask to her face on a long wooden baton. Darkness streaked down her cheeks as if she wept the night sky itself. Stars glittered down the paths of her tears.   
  
“Do you know who I am?” the visitor asked.   
  
“I do,” she replied, clutching her book to her chest. “You are the woman behind every mirror, the one who speaks in the silence, the one who rules in empty places. But I’m afraid you’re making a mistake. You have no power here.”  
  
“Is that so?” the widow wondered. “Are you not afraid?”  
  
“I am,” she admitted. “But I am far from empty.”  
  
The other woman paused, puzzled. She lowered her mask, and was gone.   
  
The third day came and went. But she did not Despair.   
  
~*~  
  
On the fourth day after the world’s ending, the ground shuddered beneath her feet.   
  
She stumbled, bracing herself on the kitchen counter. Her cat jumped up beside her and meowed, in confusion and alarm. She tipped his head up and scratched his chin. She set his food bowl down on the floor, and he was content.   
  
Half the sky had fallen. The sun remained frozen overhead. Beside it, darkness spread like smoke, creeping out past the broken glass. Shards of the fallen sky glittered like crystals, rising out of the barren earth. In the distance, tornadoes raged.   
  
Despite everything, she went outside. She clutched her favorite book to her chest, and her cat followed obediently at her heels. The air was thick and heavy, swollen with rain and something else, something stronger. Anticipation. Change.   
  
The wind rose around her, howling in her ears. Her dress billowed in the breeze.   
  
She crossed over to the lone tree in her backyard, its leaves shorn away in the sandstorm. She pressed a hand against its bark, felt the loops and whorls of the wood beneath her fingertips. She gazed up at the bare branches, like gnarled fingers reaching for the sky as if begging the heavens for answers.   
  
A figure appeared on the horizon. Faceless, sexless, encased in sleek, featureless armor, hooded and cloaked. On their back were skeletal wings forged from mismatched scrap metal. On their brow was a halo; a crown of flame. Rivers of magma followed in their wake.   
  
There was nothing to be done. There was nowhere to go.   
  
She sat on the roots of the lone tree in her backyard. Her cat climbed onto her lap.   
  
She opened her favorite book. In it, the robed man stood at a crossroads, the World clutched to his chest.   
  
_Destiny is blind_ , it read. _He walks. He does not decide._ _  
__  
_ The armored figure strode forward, catastrophe at their feet.   
  
She ran her fingers down her cat’s spine. She closed the book, and closed her eyes.   
  
The fourth day came and went, and Destruction was upon her.   
  
~*~  
  
On the fifth day, she awoke in a place with no sky.   
  
She was in a vast, cavernous space, a vaulted stone ceiling high above. There was no sky, no sun or stars, yet the space was filled with a gentle silver glow, almost like moonlight.   
  
She was in a boat, her arm dangling over the side, her fingers trailing through the lightless water. A white butterfly landed on her chest, and she sat up with a start, realizing her book was gone.   
  
There was a boy sitting with her. The boy from her dreams. He was the only splash of color in this gray, shadowed place. White butterflies flitted about his shoulders. His right eye shone that eerie blue. The clock face in his eye had stopped, frozen just before midnight.   
  
“You came to me,” she said. “Before.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What is happening?” she asked. “Why has the sun stopped? What’s happened to the sky? What happened to the night?”  
  
“The King of Dreams is dead,” the boy replied. “But do not fret. He was not the first. And he will not be the last.”  
  
The boat runs aground on a shore of pale gray silt. There is no ferryman, no robed shadow paid with coins laid upon your eyes. There is only the shifting of the tides, and the pervasive gray glow pretending to be moonlight.   
  
She climbed out of the boat. The shore of gray silt was soft underfoot. In the distance, there was a forest, shrouded by gray fog, and a single gray road.   
  
She turned back towards the boy, haloed with butterflies.   
  
“You’re not with them, are you?” she wondered.   
  
“No,” the boy replied. “I am a messenger; a prophet. A servant of the beginning and the end.”  
  
“What is this, then?” she asked. “The beginning? Or the end?”  
  
The boy only smiled that mysterious smile.   
  
She turned, towards the banks of fog and the trees in the distance.   
  
She took a deep breath, and began to walk.   
  
~*~  
  
The sixth day came, and she was no closer to her goal.   
  
The cavernous roof stretched out above her; the lone dirt road, below. All around her, barren trees, drifting gray fog, and an endless, maddening silence.   
  
This trek would have been so much more tolerable if she’d had her cat with her, she thought. Or at least a good book.   
  
There was only one road. Only one path ahead and one behind, both of them stretching out into the lonely dark. She had no idea how much further she’d have to walk to reach the end of the forest. If she turned around, it would take her hours to get back to the gray shore. And something, some nagging voice in her head, told her that stepping off the path and into the woods was not an option at all.   
  
So, in her frustration, she sat down in the dirt, and waited.   
  
She waited until the fatigue faded from her legs. She waited until the worry faded from her mind. She waited until every nagging voice in her head grew silent and still.   
  
She waited in the fog, with no light in the sky to mark the hour. After a long while, she began to doze off.   
  
“You’re late.”  
  
She woke with a start, scampering to her feet. There was a woman in the fog, dressed all in black. She wore a shining white ankh on a chain around her neck. Its twin, a black ankh tattoo, fell from her right eye like a teardrop. A white snake lurked in her sleeve, coiled around her wrist. The snake’s eyes were a vivid gold, a rare drop of color in this monochrome world.   
  
“Everyone else has already gone,” the woman in black said. “Except you. Curious.”  
  
“They came for me,” she said, wringing her hands. “The Four. Those who steal from Death.”  
  
The woman in black laughed, a hand over her mouth.   
  
“You shouldn’t call me by my name, sweetie,” she smiled. “It’s bad luck.”  
  
The girl bowed her head, sheepish.   
  
“Why am I here?”  
  
“Yes, why are you here?” echoed a voice.  
  
The world shifted around her. The dirt road beneath her shimmered like glass, and a man appeared below her, like a reflection in a pond-- hooded and robed, a book chained to his wrist.   
  
The Paths of Destiny. The Sunless Road. The beginning and the end. Two halves of the same whole.   
  
The girl took a deep breath, gazing into Destiny’s shadowed eyes.   
  
“Do you not know?” she asked. “Can’t you see the future?”  
  
“Destiny is blind,” the woman in black said. “He walks. He does not decide.”  
  
“You can see,” Destiny spoke. “You can decide. So I shall ask you again: why are you here?”  
  
A white butterfly flitted out of the fog. The girl reached out, the butterfly landing on her finger. Behind her eyelids, she saw a flash of vivid blue eyes, and a clock, frozen in the moment before the world’s ending.   
  
“To learn,” she said. “To change.”  
  
The woman in black smiled.   
  
“Then study closely,” Destiny intoned.   
  
He took a step.   
  
The world vanished into shadows, fog, and gentle, gray light.   
  
~*~  
  
On the seventh day, she awoke to her cat standing on her chest.   
  
She had been lying on the roots of the lone tree in her backyard, its branches still stripped bare and reaching for a broken sky. Her house was little more than a pile of debris, annihilated by a hurricane.   
  
She stood up, her cat curling around her shins. Her favorite book sat in the dirt at her feet.   
  
As she reached for the book, a strong wind passed across the plains. She heard grass rustle in the breeze, felt dappled sunlight on her face, the gears of the world turning behind the curtain. She held the book to her chest. Her house sat behind her, remade, as if the storm had never happened. Before her, there was a road, paved with light.   
  
Worlds, like men, die and are born again. Sometimes change comes like a tidal wave, or a sandstorm. Sometimes, it is as simple as turning a page.   
  
A white butterfly landed on her finger, before flitting away. She reached up, pulling her hood down over her eyes.   
  
On the seventh day, with an orange cat following faithfully at her heels…  
  
Destiny began to walk.   
  
~*~


End file.
